American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition (A Full Cast Production)

Shadow Moon has served his time. But hours before his release from prison, his beloved wife is killed in a freak accident. Dazed, he boards a plane home where he meets the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who professes both to know Shadow and to be king of America. Together they embark on a profoundly strange road trip across the USA, encountering a kaleidoscopic cast of characters along the way. Yet all around them a storm threatens to break.

Neverwhere

Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of: a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre.

Smoke and Mirrors

This definitive collection of Neil Gaiman's short fiction will haunt your imagination and move you to the very depths of your soul. An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath an old fur coat. A stray cat fights and refights a terrible nightly battle to protect his unwary adoptive family from unimaginable evil. A young couple receives a wedding gift that reveals a chilling alternative history of their marriage. These tales and much more await in this extraordinary book, revealing one of our most gifted storytellers at the height of his powers.

Stardust

In the English countryside at the dawn of the Victorian era, life moves at a leisurely pace in the tiny town of Wall. Tristan Thorn has lost his heart to the beautiful Victoria Forester, but she is as distant as the star they see fall from the sky one evening. For the prize of Victoria's hand, Tristan vows to retrieve the star for his beloved. It is an oath that sends the lovelorn swain over the town's ancient wall and into a world that is dangerous and strange beyond imagining.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac - as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark - from storytelling genius Neil Gaiman. It's about memory and magic and survival, about the power of stories and the darkness inside each of us. It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed.

Fragile Things

Here is a stunning collection of short stories by the acclaimed fantasy writer. The distinctive genius of Neil Gaiman has been championed by writers as diverse as Norman Mailer and Stephen King. These stories will dazzle your senses, haunt your imagination, and move you to the very depths of your soul. This extraordinary compilation reveals one of the world's most gifted storytellers at the height of his powers.

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

Global phenomenon and Sunday Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction, following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things, which includes a never-before published American Gods story, "Black Dog". In this new volume, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath.

Norse Mythology

The great Norse myths are woven into the fabric of our storytelling - from Tolkien, Alan Garner and Rosemary Sutcliff to Game of Thrones and Marvel Comics. They are also an inspiration for Neil Gaiman's own award-bedecked, best-selling fiction. Now he reaches back through time to the original source stories in a thrilling and vivid rendition of the great Norse tales.

Paterson Joseph stars as the Marquis de Carabas in this brand-new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Neil Gaiman's spin-off short story, set in the magical world of Neverwhere. Returning us to London Below, this enchanting tale continues the story of one of the most colourful characters from Neverwhere - the cool, charming, resourceful Marquis de Carabas, who trades in favours and always has a plan.

The Graveyard Book

When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing the entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard? Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him - after all, he is the last remaining member of the family.

Coraline: An Adventure Too Weird for Words

Coraline has been made into an animated feature film directed by Henry Selick, director of Tim Burton�s The Nightmare Before Christmas, with a cast including Teri Hatcher, Ian McShane, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Dakota Fanning.

Anansi Boys: A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

A new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatization of Neil Gaiman's best-selling 2006 novel about Fat Charlie Nancy and his spider God father and brother taking over his life, and generally doing a better job of it than him. But will Charlie be able to get his life back without entering a whole new world of pain? Charlie Nancy first appeared in Neil Gaiman's American Gods, now a hit TV series.

Odd and the Frost Giants

Odd's luck has been bad so far. He lost his father on a Viking expedition, his foot was crushed beneath a tree and the winter seems to be going on forever. But when Odd flees to the woods and releases a trapped bear, his luck begins to change. The eagle, bear and fox he encounters reveal they're actually Norse gods trapped in animal form by the evil frost giants who have conquered Asgard, the city of the gods....

Rivers of London: PC Peter Grant, Book 1

My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit--we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to--and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May.

Mythos

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce and Walt Disney. They are embedded deeply in the traditions, tales and cultural DNA of the West. You'll fall in love with Zeus, marvel at the birth of Athena, wince at Cronus and Gaia's revenge on Ouranos, weep with King Midas and hunt with the beautiful and ferocious Artemis.

The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

The View from the Cheap Seats draws together, for the first time ever, myriad nonfiction writing by international phenomenon and Sunday Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman. From Make Good Art, the speech he gave at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia that went viral, to pieces on artists and legends including Terry Pratchett, Lou Reed and Ray Bradbury, the collection offers a glimpse into the head and heart of one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

Good Omens: The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

A full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s celebrated apocalyptic comic novel, with bonus length episodes and outtakes. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday in fact. Just after Any Answers on Radio 4….Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield.

Once Upon a Time in the North

When Lee and his daemon, Hester, land in the Arctic town of Novy Odense, they quickly become embroiled in an out-and-out political brawl. So when Iorek offers to help, Lee is only too happy to accept. Together they take on a slippery politician, his monstrous gas-powered gun and a murderous gunfighter. And so begins a friendship that will continue throughout their lives.

The Man from the Diogenes Club

The debonair psychic investigator Richard Jeperson is the most valued member of the Diogenes Club, the least-known and most essential branch of British Intelligence. While foiling the plot of many a maniacal mastermind, he is chased by sentient snowmen and Nazi zombies, investigates an unearthly murderer stalking the sex shops of 1970s Soho, and battles a poltergeist to prevent it triggering nuclear Armageddon.

Weaveworld

Clive Barker has made his mark on modern fiction by exposing all that is surreal and magical in the ordinary world - and exploring the profound and overwhelming terror that results. With its volatile mix of the fantastical and the contemporary, the everyday and the otherworldly,
Weaveworld is an epic work of dark fantasy and horror - a tour de force from one of today's most forceful and imaginative artists.

Lovecraft's Monsters

Prepare to meet the wicked progeny of the master of modern horror. In Lovecraft's Monsters, H. P. Lovecraft's most famous creations--Cthulhu, Shoggoths, Deep Ones, Elder Things, Yog-Sothoth, and more--appear in all their terrifying glory. Each story is a gripping new take on a classic Lovecraftian creature. Contributors include such literary luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Karl Edward Wagner, Elizabeth Bear, and Nick Mamatas.

Rotherweird

Rotherweird is a twisted, arcane murder-mystery with shades of Deborah Harkness, Hope Mirrlees and Ben Aaronovitch, Mervyn Peake and Edward Gorey at their disturbing best. The town of Rotherweird stands alone - there are no guidebooks, despite the fascinating and diverse architectural styles cramming the narrow streets, the avant-garde science and offbeat customs. Cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: nobody, but nobody, studies the town or its history.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.

The Bedlam Stacks

An astonishing historical novel set in the shadowy, magical forests of South America, which draws on the captivating world of the international best seller The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. Deep in uncharted Peru, the holy town of Bedlam stands at the edge of a forest. The shrine statues move, and anyone who crosses the border dies. But somewhere inside are cinchona trees, whose bark yields quinine: the only known treatment for malaria. On the other side of the Pacific, it is 1859, and India is ravaged by the disease.

Publisher's Summary

A kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth from best-selling storytelling legend Neil Gaiman, best-selling author of American Gods and Norse Mythology. A BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Anansi Boys, featuring an all-star cast lead by Lenny Henry, will premiere on Christmas Day 2017.

Fat Charlie Nancy is not actually fat. He was fat once but he is definitely not fat now. No, right now Fat Charlie Nancy is angry, confused and more than a little scared - right now his life is spinning out of control, and it is all his dad's fault.

If his rotter of an estranged father hadn't dropped dead at a karaoke night, Charlie would still be blissfully unaware that his dad was Anansi the spider god. He would have no idea that he has a brother called Spider, who is also a god. And there would be no chance that said brother would be trying to take over his life, flat and fiancée, or, to make matters worse, be doing a much better job of it than him.

Desperate to reclaim his life, Charlie enlists the help of four more-than-slightly eccentric old ladies and their unique brand of voodoo - and between them they unleash a bitter and twisted force to get rid of Spider. But as darkness descends and badness begins is Fat Charlie Nancy going to get his life back in one piece or is he about to enter a whole netherworld of pain?

What the Critics Say

"A warm, funny, immensely entertaining story...Anansi Boys combines the anarchy of Douglas Adams with a Wodehousian generosity of spirit." (Susanna Clarke)"Lenny Henry...is absolutely the perfect choice to read Anansi Boys....An absolutely top-notch performance, one that makes a terrific book even better." (Publishers Weekly)"Mixing farce and fantasy, epic mythology and domestic drama, Gaiman's novel is a clever piece of storytelling and a celebration of the magic of make-believe." (Independent on Sunday)

Not being a fan of Lenny Henry, i was somewhat worried when a friend bought me this for my birthday this year, I expected his voice to grate throughout, and ruin a brilliant book by one of my favourite authors. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to find that he does a great job of telling the story, bringing a real sense of life to the characters- there's no denying that his range is limited, but it serves this book well. The reason behind my giving it 4 stars, then- I'd say that Gaiman's previous novel, 'American Gods' is a more compelling story (but I'm not sure if it's available on audiobook- certainly, it isn't from audible) and in terms of capturing the essence of a story perfectly, you can't beat Neil reading his own work- I'm thinking of the audiobook reading of the wonderful coraline, his dark fantasy aimed at children but massively enjoyable for adults nonetheless (unfortunately, audible doesn't stock this great book either). Still, these are minor quibbles, Neil is a master storyteller and I highly recommend all of his work. A more accurate score would be 9/10.

Not having known Lenny Henry's work before listening to this book, I had no prejudices. I love Neil Gaiman's writing, his humor, his limitless ideas and full-fledged characters. I've read nearly all of his novels and some short fiction. It's only the Sandman series that I haven't read (yet). At any rate, I was wowed by Henry's performance reading this book. Apparently, he and Gaiman are buddies and he was asked by the author to do this narration. He does a fantastic job of bring each character to life, his accents were spot on (even the American one!), and he imbued the Gods with characteristics from their animal sides which was truly amazing.

This is a wonderful tale of personal conflict, sibling rivalry, the younger generation versus the older, love, cultural roots and more. I lost count of how may stories were included in this one. An enjoyable fantasy which makes great use of the familiar to make sense of the lead character Charlie's life. Lenny Henry read well enough for me not to remember that he was the narrator. (No outlandish laughter!) I was disappointed when I got to the end. I enjoyed the fact that Charlie's real world life ran parallel to his fantasy life. This book make you feel if you turn around quickly you may catch a glimpse of something of another world... It was refreshing to hear an modern take of the anansi story. A great book for leaving the bills, responsibilities and other such matters behind for a few hours

All Neil Gaiman's stuff is great. This is a funny, clever, book, slightly dark in places, and a total delight. You've no idea what's going to happen next, or where it will end up. But you will be desperate to find out! Lenny Henry reads it beautifully, and brings it fabulously alive.

As with all his other books on Audible, Neil Gaiman doesnt disappoint - the story is filled with dark humour, romance, fantasy and adventure. It is also worth noting Lenny Henry's storytelling abilities - people often forget Lenny's capacity for voices, but it's hard to forget when he puts in a performance like this.

I bought this book because I enjoyed American Gods so much and, while there are some strong links between the two books (Anansi), they could not be more different.

The story has tonnes of the charm and imagination that you come to expect from a Neil Gaiman story. I found myself caring about the characters (even the antagonists) who are riddled with personality flaws, conflicts and other baggage. The settings are so vividly described that it was hard not to get lost in the settings.

Lenny Henry makes for a surprisingly excellent narrator for this book - his range of accents is incredible and leads to a very immersive experience. He even pulls-off a posh blazer-wearing middle-aged white guy very well.

Wow! What a book! The main characters are fascinating, lovable and engaging, but so are all the minor characters that you come across in this story, some of which turn out to become quite important indeed.

Big head up on the narrator. This book should be used as a convincing argument why audio books are so great! The narrator, with his thick Caribbean accent, is perfect for the narration.

Lenny Henry is an inspired choice to narrate this novel. His vocal expressiveness is simply the best I have heard so far in an audiobook, the characters are clearly differentiated and he always gets the emphasis right. The only (very minor) criticism I have is that some silent gaps between segments are a little longer than they need to be - but that's better than no gaps at all which I have encountered in some other books.

Any additional comments?

I love the way Neil Gaiman mixes mythology with reality. To say any more would be to risk spoilers. I haven't quite finished listening but I'm really looking forward to hearing how it ends. I believe I can predict some of the outcome, but not how it will be achieved.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

S.

Cape town, South Africa

31/05/12

Overall

Performance

Story

"Lenny Henry brought this book alive for me"

What did you love best about Anansi Boys?

I have always loved Neil Gaiman and have read Anansi Boys more than once. However, listening to Lenny Henry tell it brought so many new aspects alive for me. It was a truly delightful experience.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Peter

Maidstone, Australia

18/04/12

Overall

Performance

Story

"Great story, great reader."

This was my first audiobook. What a great introduction. One of the best books I have ever read. The naration was fabulous.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Carolyn

Auckland, New Zealand

27/05/11

Overall

"Tremendous. Perfect narrator and narration."

I do love Neil Gaiman's books but hadn't yet read this one on paper. After listening to Anansi Boys, I want to experience all his other novels in audio form. For me, Lenny Henry's narration added a whole extra dimension of joy, and slowing down my experience of the book made me realise how wonderful Neil Gaiman's language and observation is.

Lenny Henry is the perfect narrator for this story; his pacing, his rendition of the characters' voices and thoughts, and the way he can bring both the humour and the awkwardness to life, delighted me.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Robert

Hughesdale, Australia

21/02/11

Overall

"Simply Good"

It started off a bit like one of those Cringe Books. Awkward moments experienced by our unlikely hero and somehow it turns out OK. Yes, but no. Very difficult to describe but very enjoyable to listen to and it get's better as it goes along.

The story, for me at least, was a bit unusual, taken from the mythology (i assume) of Africa (not Voodoo) and introdyced me to a different type of wolrd of Semi gods and ...the like but again, much different that what we expect from most mythologies.

If you've read it all, it's worth a read and if you want something just a little bit different also great. I will be looking for further books from this Author a bit late.

Also, the Narrator was brillinat!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Jacobus

Johannesburg, South Africa

24/10/10

Overall

Performance

Story

"Entertaining absurdity"

It is interesting how Neil Gaiman takes the listener in a captivating way to the absurd, and making it believable. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The story starts with a man called Fat Charlie, being called fat, only because his father called him fat. Very much like the neighbour's dog, who won prices in dog shows until his father called the dog Goofy. Gaiman warns the reader that the story isn't an ordinary one. It becomes more and more interesting as Fat Charlie's father's nature is introduced to you. Then Fat Charlie also has to deal with his mischievous long lost brother, Spider. Gaiman interweaves the impossible into a possible setting, making the story unpredictable.

The narrator, Lenny Henry, does an excellent job in interpreting the various characters. I enjoyed his interpretative reading, especially his African-American accent needed to understand the characters.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Damion Brown

16/05/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"starts slow but eventually good"

performer was excellent with an impressive array of accents. story is a bit off the beaten track , but being West Indian I loved the reference to the anansi universe

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Ruth

25/09/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Fabulous fantasy for a fastidious clientele"

excellent narration and an intrlguing ploy that kept me wanting to hear all that remained in

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

N. Campbell

Australia

15/06/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"My ABSOLUTE favourite"

I have read this book, listened to this book, & lent others this book (hard copy) more times than I can remember.Lenny Henry's narration is perfect.Neil Gaiman's story of course is unforgettable. I guarantee you will never look at a spider the same way again. :)

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Sean

29/06/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Fantastic"

Narrator is absolutely fantastic, does the voices so well. Really knows how to bring Gaiman's story alive and make the listener laugh!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Report Inappropriate Content

If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.